


i need your help (remembering myself)

by orphan_account



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Tumblr: finnreyfridays
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-15
Updated: 2017-09-15
Packaged: 2018-12-22 10:50:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11965881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: rey doesn't even know what's causing her more stress: the fact that she has amnesia or the fact that the amnesia caused her to forget the last three years of her life.





	i need your help (remembering myself)

Rey has never particularly liked hospitals. They smell strange and they keep it too cold and she can't remember ever having a single good experience inside of a hospital. She supposes good things  _do_  happen in hospitals - babies being born and people being nursed back to health and all that - but she personally has never experienced it, therefore she's inclined to keep her rather negative stance on them.

So being that hospitals aren't her favorite, when she opens her eyes and sees bright lights and smells that  _smell_  and is instantly freezing, her stomach drops realizing where she is.

She tries to move but there are tubes in her arm that stop her. Her whole body hurts, but especially her head. There's something in her nose - some sort of breathing apparatus, she thinks - and it's uncomfortable and the beeping her ears are only just now starting to register is getting faster, more frantic. It must be tracking her heart rate because she is quick on her way to having a proper panic attack.

"Ma'am," a young man with a kind face appears at her bedside. His hands are hovering over her, prepared to push her back down if she tries to sit up. "Hey, you're alright. You're fine. You're in the hospital, okay? We're taking care of you."

Care of her? For what? What happened and, most importantly, why can't she remember why she's here in the first place?

Rey tries to speak but her mouth feels like it's coated in cement. Without having to try and find a way to mime that out to the man in front of her, a straw poking out of a cup appears on the other side of her and when she sees who's holding it, she's able to calm down. Slightly.

"Dad," she croaks out. His eyes are red; he's been crying. Is she hurt  _that_  bad? 

"Shh," his hand comes up as if to smooth her hair but he stops himself. That's not like him. "Don't try to talk yet, just - here. Drink."

She does as she's told and sips from the cup of water until the other man beside her chuckles and mentions she should probably slow down. Easy for him to say, though. The inside of his throat doesn't feel like sandpaper.

"All better now? Do you think you can talk?" He asks, pulling a clipboard from beside her bed and a pen from his pocket.

"Yes," she nods, her voice still rough. "Feels much better."

Her dad has a hold of her hand like a lifeline. She's never seen him this shaken up before.

"Alright my name is Dr. Rook but you can call me Bodhi if you'd like," he smiles in that way doctors do when they have bad news but want to make you feel like they don't. Rey couldn't be warier if she tried. "I'm gonna ask you some questions, okay? Just answer them to the best of your ability."

He exchanges a glance with her dad; there is definitely something going on that they're not telling her.

"What's your name?"

"Rey Skywalker."

"And how old are you Rey?"

"Twenty."

Dr. Rook -  _Bodhi_  - nods, and scribbles on his clipboard. "Do you know why you're here?"

"I - I was in my car and - " she stops. She can't continue. Not because she doesn't want to but because she  _can't_. She doesn't remember. "I was in my car going somewhere and - I don't know. I don't know what happened after that. Or really before that, either." 

Bodhi gives her dad another one of those somber looks before he turns it on her. "Rey, that was three days ago. You were in a pretty bad car accident and you suffered some bruising, a fractured rib and some head trauma." He pauses to tuck the clipboard underneath his arm. "Can you tell me anything you remember about your life? Like, for instance, where do you live?"

Rey sighs, thinking quite hard. Let's see, she's still in uni so - "I live with my dad. In a little cottage with a garden in the front and a swing set in the yard out back, right? That's how it looks?"

Her dad nods, his eyes going glassy like he's close to tears. She's upsetting him but she can't figure out why. She's remembering things; shouldn't that be something to be happy about?

"What about friends?" Bodhi asks. "Other family members? Significant others?"

"I have an aunt, Leia, and an uncle, Han. As far as friends go, I have a few. Jess and Kare and - "

Before Rey can continue, another man walks through the door. He isn't dressed like a doctor or a nurse and she wonders if maybe he walked into the wrong room. Though, judging by the way he's looking at her, it feels like he thinks he knows her.

"You're awake," he breathes out, rushing to her side. Bodhi stops him, though. He pins him with a look and the two of them have an entire non-verbal conversation. Her dad squeezes her hand tighter.

"Now Rey, this might sound silly, but," Bodhi starts once he returns to her bedside. "Do you know who this is?"

She looks at the young man again. He's dressed in a hooded sweatshirt and jeans. His eyes are big and brown and are pleading with her to say the right thing but she doesn't know what that is. He may know her but she doesn't know him.

"No," she shakes her head and the young man deflates right before her eyes. She wishes she could take it back, that she could know him like he seems to desperately want her to. "I - I don't know him. Should I?"

"She doesn't know me," he says, his voice cracking. He's on the verge of tears and Rey feels her heart breaking. She wonders if the machines she's hooked up to will pick up on it. "Dr. Rook, you said she would remember!"

"Finn," her dad addresses him by name and her breath catches. She  _should_  know that name, and maybe subconsciously she does but she simply can't place him. "Just relax, alright? She's just woken up - " 

Rey interrupts her dad, still very curious about this emotionally distraught young man. "Why is it so important that I know you?"

Bodhi gives him - Finn - that look again and he doesn't respond, assumedly at the doctor's non-verbal behest.

"Rey, what year is it?" Bodhi asks, much to her annoyance. She wants to know about this man who's heart she seems to have unintentionally broken. She doesn't have time for stupid questions like that.

"Twenty-fourteen." As soon as the words leave her lips the entire room goes oddly still. She has a feeling that wasn't the correct answer. "Isn't it?"

"Honey," her dad kneels beside her, finally at eye level. He looks over at Bodhi, silently asking for permission to continue which the doctor grants. "That was three years ago. You don't live with me anymore, you moved out. And - and that's - "

The young man pushes past Bodhi and kneels at her opposite side. He grabs her hand and presses a kiss to her knuckles. She's slightly put off by the gesture but he's just so sad she decides to let it slide this one time.

"I'm Finn," he says with a sniff. "I'm your husband."

+

Dr. Rook and a pair of other nurses perform a battery of tests on her during the next twenty-four hours. They check her vision, her hearing, take some blood and monitor the state of her fractured rib. Rey is numb - mentally and emotionally speaking - for it all, though.

She doesn't even know what's causing her more stress: the fact that she has amnesia or the fact that the amnesia caused her to forget the last three years of her life. She doesn't remember graduating from university or getting the job at the fancy greenhouse she apparently has or that she apparently is someone's  _wife_.

Rey knows her dad wouldn't lie to her so when Finn told her they were married, she looked to him for confirmation. He simply nodded and smiled fondly and it made her feel worse than she already did because she doesn't remember  _her husband_.

Finn hangs around over the next day, but never alone. He only comes into her room when her dad does and never says anything. He just sits bedside, his hands fidgeting in his lap like he wants to reach out for her. Rey tries to talk to him, but it's awkward. He looks so sad and she wants so badly to fix that but she just doesn't know how short of miraculously regaining her lost memories.

When Dr. Rook is satisfied with her health and schedules her for release, Rey chooses to go home with her dad instead of Finn. She feels like she  _should_  go with her husband but it's still too weird. He's still practically a stranger to her.

Rey's preparing to leave, gathering the items they tell her are her belongings even though she doesn't recognize them, when her dad has to leave to go sign some forms and Finn comes in shortly after so she isn't alone.

"Hey," he looks better than he did when she first saw him when she woke up. He looks like he's gotten at least a little sleep.

She smiles at him in the way she would a stranger on the tube or in the market. She hates that. She hates that he looks at her with so much love and she can't return the favor.

"I don't know my password," she chuckles, waving the iPhone around to show him. He walks over and gently takes it from her. She watched him key in four numbers that have no meaning to her but - like everything else - probably should. "Twelve fifteen?"

Finn wets his lips before speaking. "Our wedding anniversary. The fifteenth of December."

Rey doesn't say anything because what is there to say? ' _Oops, I'm sorry I don't remember what's probably the single most important day of our shared lives_ '? 

There are a bunch of notifications of missed calls, texts, emails and other things on the phone. She sees right past them all to the photo of her and Finn that serves as her background. It's a silly one. They're both pulling faces and it makes her smile. They look in love.  _Really_  in love. She looks so happy, too. What she wouldn't give to just snap out of this stupid fog and regain that happiness.

She doesn't even realize she's crying until a tear hits the screen of the phone.

"Rey," Finn rushes to her and takes the phone away. "Probably wasn't a good idea to look at that."

"When did we take that?" It seems like an odd question, but Dr. Rook said maybe certain situations can jog her memories back.

Finn looks hesitant to answer but eventually does. "Our first date, about two years ago. I took you to a carnival and we rode the ferris wheel but it got stuck and we were all the way at the top. We took that picture while we waited for them to get it started back up."

She searches her mind for the memory but can't find it. It's still sweet to hear, though.

"You love carnivals but hate heights so, wasn't really the  _perfect_  date but you kissed me when I brought you home so I guess it worked out all right." He looks proud and from what she  _does_  remember about herself, he has every right to. 

"I kissed you on the first date?" He nods and she scoffs. "No way, I don't kiss on the first date. You're making that up."

"I swear. I walked you all the way up to your dad's little orange door and before I could even say good night you had your lips on mine."

Rey can't believe it - she really never kisses on the first date - but she can  _feel_  it. She doesn't know him, at least not in the way she used to, but when he talks, when he looks at her, she gets these butterflies. It's like every part of her except her brain knows him and is drawn to him. And if she's feeling this way without properly knowing him, she can only imagine how she felt knowing him as well as she did. 

Maybe breaking her first date-kiss rule for him wasn't that far fetched of an idea after all.

"Ready to go, honey?" Rey's dad's voice echoes through the room. He looks between her and Finn and she can see him biting back a hopeful smile. "Everything alright?"

"Yep," Finn nods. "Just helping Rey unlock her phone."

"Alright," he hums. "Well, I'll be in the lobby whenever you're done unlocking."

Rey rolls her eyes. This man is her husband yet her dad made her feel like she's been caught in her bedroom with a neighbor boy she has a crush on.

"Oh," Finn starts once her dad is long gone. He reaches into his pocket and fishes out a beautiful looking ring. She can only assume what it is. "Doctors gave it to me when you were admitted. I can keep it if you're uncomfortable wearing it, I just thought - "

"No," she takes it from him. It looks just like something she'd want as her wedding ring. It's simple. Just a single stone and a sleek band. She slips it on and it looks strange but feels perfect. "I think I should wear it. Just to keep everyone from hitting on me when I go out."

Finn snorts, and it's far more endearing than it is embarrassing. "Nice to see you still have your sense of humor."

"I'm gonna remember, Finn," Rey says, suddenly very sincere. "I don't know how, but I'm gonna try my hardest."

And she means it. She isn't totally sure how she's gonna do it, but she's determined to get it done. She wants to get back all the fantastic memories she knows she has with him. She wants to remember every date and every kiss and,  _gosh_ , she wants to remember the day they got married. She wants to remember it all because she has a very strong feeling what she shared with Finn was something too special to easily be forgotten.

+

Rey thinks about Finn a lot.

She thinks about him when she wakes up, when she's eating lunch with her dad, when she's watching tv in her bedroom, when she's reading before bed - she thinks about him  _all the time_.

It's never any sort of specific thought, just a curious wonder as to what he's doing at the moment. She wonders if he misses her or if it's easier not to have an amnesiac wife hanging around treating him like an acquaintance rather than a life partner. She wonders what they'd be doing if she hadn't lost all her memories of him.

But the fantastic thing about it all is that she doesn't have to think about him and wonder what he's up to like one-half of a one-sided crush. He's her husband, dammit, even if she doesn't remember. That gives her a lot of options in terms of how to cope with her constant thoughts of him.

So Rey texts him as often as she thinks of him.

Sometimes their exchanges are short, cordial. Other times they get so long winded he ends up calling her because ' _it's much easier for me to tell you than to type it all out_ '.

Finn tells her stories from their relationship, good and bad. He tells her about the night they decided to move in together. He tells her about their first big fight. He tells her what they were planning for the future before her accident. He tells her how he's still hopeful maybe someday that can revisit those plans.

Rey talks to him almost every day for two weeks before she packs her things and shows up at his door. Or,  _their_  door, rather.

"Hi," Finn greets her when he opens the door. He glances down to the duffle bag of things she had when she left the hospital and purses his lips. "Going somewhere?"

"Can I come in?" It seems silly once she says it. It's technically her flat. She doesn't really need permission to come inside. Still, she waits for him to step aside to allow her in. "So turns out living with my dad wasn't all that fun. I mean I appreciate his concern but he was kind of suffocating me."

He laughs. "Well, you  _were_  just in a car accident that broke one of your ribs and caused you to lose the last three years. Can you blame him?"

"Okay, I only  _fractured_  a rib and its healing quite nicely, thank you very much." She says, much to his amusement. "And, regardless of his doting behavior, I figured it might be time I came back anyway. I mean this is my home, right?"

"It is if you want it to be. You don't have to jump into anything you're not ready for. I'm prepared to wait for you, Rey. As long as it takes, I'll wait."

She believes him. She can see it in his eyes that he's telling the truth. He loves her and he's not going to let a little thing like a case of amnesia change that. So she thinks she owes it to him to at least try to get back into their routine as best she can.

After she unpacks her one bag in their bedroom, Finn orders pizza. He says he can't cook, that she was always better at it than him, but he can bake. So while they wait for their pizza, he makes snickerdoodles from scratch. Rey watches him in complete amazement, complete adoration. Maybe she can't remember how much she loved him but she can certainly fall in love with him all over again.

Once their pizza arrives, they eat and talk. This time, he doesn't try to jog her memory with stories or anything; they just have a regular conversation. He gets cheeky halfway through and asks her if she likes a man that can bake. She regretful informs him that while she does, she already has a (cute) husband that bakes a mean snickerdoodle. He blushes and a rush of pride swells in her chest.

The conversation is fun and easy and she can see why she fell for him. It's admittedly still a little strange being married to someone she doesn't know anymore but it's getting less and less strange the more she's around him.

They sleep separately, per her request.

Rey likes him and she's becoming more comfortable around him but not nearly enough to share a bed. Finn takes it in stride, though and she appreciates him for it. He doesn't guilt trip her or try to convince her otherwise, he just gathers a blanket, asks permission to kiss her forehead (she grants it and doesn't regret it a bit) and heads for the couch in the living room.

She sleeps better in this bed than she did in her bed at her dad's. The pillows and sheets smell like Finn and maybe that's what helps her relax without the use of the medication Dr. Rook prescribed her for any insomnia she might experience because of the accident. She doesn't dream of crushed up cars or hospitals or anything unpleasant. She dreams of Finn and his laugh and his smile and it lulls her right into a peaceful sleep.

They hang out more, now that she's staying.

Finn takes off work and they go to the movies and to museums and he takes her to a botanical garden that houses an orchid he apparently paid to have named after her for their one year anniversary.

(How did she manage to luck up and get the sweetest guy in the world to marry her?)

When she's ready, he takes her to meet their friends, which she enjoys a little less than going places with just him. She remembers most of them, but they often bring up experiences she has no memory of. She tries not to, but she can't help feeling guilty not being able to share in reminiscing with them.

The more they go out, though, the more Rey lets Finn in.

When they go out to a fancy restaurant -  _"just 'coz I'm happy to have you back home"_ , he said - Rey lets Finn hold her hand when they walk down the street after dinner. When they go grocery shopping, she kisses him in front of the melons for no other reason than she's wanted to do it for some time. After a week, she tells him he can sleep in the bed with her if he wanted to. He still keeps a respectable distance but after two nights of sleeping with a body pillow between them, Rey tosses it aside and cuddles up behind him. Finn tells her he always preferred being the little spoon. 

It isn't long - maybe two months since she's come back - before Rey turns to Finn one night and asks if they could make love.

"Show me," she says against his lips. "Show me how we used to be before."

"Are you sure?" he responds, almost breathless. "What if you don't like me like you used to?" He smirks. She kisses it away.

"Only one way to find out."

And Rey doesn't like him. She  _loves_  him. 

She loves the way he kisses her and the way he touches her and the praises he whispers in her ear. She loves the way he holds her afterward, like she's the most precious thing in the world to him.

"You okay?" He asks before pressing a kiss to the crown of her head.

She nods against his chest. "I was just thinking, I may never get those memories back. I may never remember the day we got engaged or when I first introduced you to my dad but - " she moves to crane her neck to look at him: her beautiful, lovely Finn who's been so patient with her throughout this whole ordeal. "But no matter what, I'm always gonna remember how much I love you."

And it isn't perfect, there are memories she would love to regain, but for now, just being able to still have these feelings for her husband is enough for her.

**Author's Note:**

> well, that was my ~~terrible~~ contribution to finnrey friday! it's a modern au bc apparently that's all i'm capable of writing. anyhow, all my shortcomings aside, don't forget to leave kudos/comments if your heart so pleases! thanks for reading!


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